The Group Dentistry Now Show: The Voice of the DSO Industry

David James, CPA, Founder & CEO, and Rhonda Meyer, VP of Sales & Partnerships at Locate Strategy, join this audio-only podcast. David and Rhonda share insights and strategies for choosing a practice location, evaluating a practice acquisition or looking to make the most out of an existing practice. We take a deep dive into the science of dental practice location strategy. Key discussion points include:

Understanding the Locate Strategy platform and how it helps with de novo locations, due diligence and existing practice growth.
What are Strategic Moves?
What are Census Block Groups?
Studies that evaluate location and market area.
Much more

To learn more about Locate Strategy visit – www.LocateStrategy.com

To contact Rhonda Meyer, email her at Rhonda.Meyer@LocateStrategy.com.

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Full DSO Podcast Transcript:

Rhonda Meyer & David James, CPA of Locate Strategy share their dental practice location knowledge and strategy.

Bill Neumann: I’d like to welcome everyone to the Group Dentistry Now show. I’m Bill Neumann, and as always, we appreciate you listening in. Without a great audience like you, we wouldn’t have great topics like the next topic that we’re going to highlight, which is really wrapped around practice location selection, and anything really related to the individual practices. It’s a topic we really haven’t discussed here, so we brought two experts on to discuss the importance of when you’re selecting a practice, whether it’s acquiring an existing practice or looking to build a de novo, really just anything around the practice location. Two executives from the company, we have Rhonda Meyer, who is the Vice President of Sales and Partnerships with us today. And we have David James, who is the CEO and founder, and he’s also a CPA. from Locate Strategy. So David, Rhonda, thank you both for being here. Really appreciate you being here today and a new topic for us. And we really want to spend a lot of time on this. Thank you, Bill. Glad to be here. Yeah, glad to have you. David, thanks for being here.

David James: Appreciate the opportunity. Thank you so much.

Bill Neumann: Let me just go into a little bit of the background on Locate Strategy. And then, of course, we’re going to let Ron and David talk a lot more about the organization and how they can help you, whether you have one practice or whether you have 50 practices and you’re looking to add more. So Locate uses this world-class platform to help practitioners and dental industry organizations make critical location decisions, such as where to locate a practice, due diligence, and evaluating existing practice locations. This is really important, and it addresses a huge gap in the industry. It feels like a game changer to me, and I really can’t wait for you, our audience, to really learn more here. So I’ve known both Rhonda and David for quite a while. Rhonda, would you mind telling the audience a little bit about your background and how you moved into the role you have as VP of Sales and Partnerships at Locate Strategy?

Rhonda Meyer: Sure. Thanks, Bill. I’ve been in the healthcare industry for about 20 years, dental, medical, optometric, and vet, but my longest experience and more in-depth experiences in the dental industry In fact, in a previous role, I had responsibility for site selection, first for a multi-site private practice doctor, and then at a very early DSO. And so when I saw an opportunity to join David’s company, we talked, I liked him, which is really helpful, as you know. And then I saw the product and I thought, oh no, I wish I had had this. It would have given me so much more confidence It would have really flushed out some of the information that I myself had to create to select sites. And it was unique, and it is still unique in the industry. Some of the components that make up the information we share with the doctor or with the organization are completely different than what I had seen out there. So I was really very excited about it.

Bill Neumann: Thank you, Rhonda. And David and I have known each other for a while as well. I believe, David, you and I met at a dental workshop in New York City. probably a decade ago, I’m gonna guess somewhere around there. And you’ve been working on Locate Strategy for quite a long time. It’s really fine-tuned the platform, the technology behind it, the studies and the data behind it. So David, tell the audience a little bit about your background. Obviously, you have a CPA and you have some CFO experience as well.

David James: Hey Bill, thanks so much for that. I apologize to everybody for my cold and cough and hacking around. Yeah, we met about 10 years ago. And my background is I’ve been a CPA for over 35 years. And a lot of that has been as a chief financial officer in all kinds of companies from $2 billion companies down to startups and software startups and things like that. I’ve got a wide background in services and manufacturing and banking and basically about everything. And, but I really focus on entrepreneurs and really, really like to, you know, help small businesses and companies and things like that. So, you know, that’s why when I was exposed to this idea, it was so intriguing to me because it kind of brought together all the different aspects of my career into one, you know, one kind of a way to help a lot of people in a lot of companies and a whole industry.

Bill Neumann: Yeah, that really leads to this next question here for you, David, which is, you know, what was your, what was the catalyst for you? Why did you decide to start Locate?

David James: Well, you know, it was 2009 and I met somebody in the industry and they expressed that there was a huge need in the dental market for a web platform or some kind of way to help the dental industry make data-driven location decisions. Because for the most part, it felt like people were just kind of driving around looking for a busy corner and then hoping and praying that it worked out. And often, most of the time it didn’t. It was just, you know, it was a lot of frustration going on. And my passion is to really help people. You know, so in this case, like I mentioned before, it was exciting to me to be able to kind of help dentists and industry companies, or we call them partners sometimes, and especially underserved communities address the whole location issues with regards to the dental industry. So what we did over the next couple of years is we created this world-class web platform. And in doing so, we combined the best demographic data you can get, the practitioner data, interface it with mapping, and the goal, which we succeeded, was to be able to provide fast, precise, but affordable answers. Essentially, we’re taking the same technology that the big boys currently use now, the Walmarts of the world and things like that, and bringing that down to where small businesses and professionals, including groups and DSOs and other industry companies, can actually use it and benefit from having that same type of technology available to them. So, you know, the challenge that we saw in doing this is that it’s pretty indisputable that location is the number one factor that determines how successful a practice is, and it also determines how successful their partners are. you know, because as the practice grows, so do the industry people that help support them. But the hardest part in this process was to get the data and to be able to execute this with, you know, to provide speed, increase sales cycles, you know, and all that kind of thing and increase confidence and lower the risk. So, like you said, Bill, we’ve been around for a while. We started out, we called ourselves Real Score. Some of you may remember that. The short version is I had some health issues pretty soon after Bill, you and I met. And basically, for a lot of reasons, the company was kind of on cruise control. We focused on doing white label projects. We had clients that did that. In that process, we’ve helped thousands of dentists, you know, successfully find the right, correct locations to help them grow faster and build more value and things like that. We have a huge background in this industry. We’re just not quite as well known from a market naming standpoint. So in 2022, we rebranded as Locate Strategy or Locate for short, relaunched our version two of our platform, and now we’re going directly into the market. And the last piece of the history in 2024, we’ve also added the ability to serve optometry, optometry market, veterinarian, and then also the medical market. So it’s been a big year for us, but we feel like we’re very, we’re poised to basically help any kind of professional practice and any company that works with those practices succeed and grow as well.

Bill Neumann: David, you mentioned something that’s really important. You talked about the industry organizations or those vendor partners that partner with the practices and the dental groups and DSOs. And Rhonda, that’s really where you come in. You’re on the sales side, so you’re talking to the group practices and the DSOs, but you’re also vice president of partnerships. So how can Locate, Rhonda, help partners?

Rhonda Meyer: Well, you know, it’s interesting when we see a potential to partner with a DSO or a large group or a doctor who has three or four practices. I always think in terms of relationships and that I’m a partner to that doctor or to that organization. What can I do to help them? David feels the same way. It’s not a one way street. Buy from us and we go away. I always look at things from a long term perspective. We help our partners increase their revenues. We also feel that we speed up the sales cycle. It shortens the decision-making time in terms of selecting a site. We also improve relationships and company reputation. So if someone refers a doctor to us, we’re happy to work with that doctor and as an individual. If they partner with the doctor and I work with both at the same time, it actually strengthens the relationship our partner has with the doctor. And I think that’s important. That’s not our relationship, but we gain a lot by working directly with our partners. And they’re on the phone when we talk to our doctors. We also feel that we have a real operational advantage in terms of helping identify startup locations. That’s a difficult one. And it’s a little bit scary, especially for individual doctors. We can help them with their buying decisions. Our information is very thorough. I know David’s going to go through a lot of that in a few minutes, but it’s packed with information. So the doctor has a lot more confidence. Our partner has a lot more confidence about moving forward and moving forward quicker. So I think those are the things that really help our partners and the doctors that they may refer to us or that they’re working with.

Bill Neumann: So Rhonda, this is probably a really good time in the podcast. If anybody in the audience is interested in learning more about Locate Strategy, how do they get in touch with you?

Rhonda Meyer: Well, I am the point of contact moving forward, and you can either call me at 415-516-5824, or you can email me at Rhonda.Meyer@locatestrategy.com. I’m responsive, so reach out.

Bill Neumann: Yeah, I’m going to throw this question out there before we get into specifics about really what Locate offers and how it can help your partners, ESOs, group practices really excel. Do you have a consensus, Rhonda or David, as far as what you typically see? So right now, if you were going to a group practice or maybe even a solo that’s looking to add one location, What’s the process now? What are they doing when they’re looking to either acquire a practice? What type of due diligence are they doing? I mean, I’m sure there’s not a cookie cutter answer to this, but I’m really curious about what you’re seeing out there in the space as far as how they’re handling that and also these de novo, these startups.

Rhonda Meyer: Yeah, it’s interesting. I’m talking to individual doctors or doctors that are coming from a partner. And I don’t always, sometimes I talk to our analysts, which I know we’re gonna touch on that, but it’s really important that this audience knows that we have analysts who create these studies and reports that use their experience to help the doctor clarify what they’re looking for. And I think that’s an important point. I think that Many individual doctors that I’ve talked to are looking at Facebook for guidance from other doctors who have opened a new practice. They go to events and listen to a presentation. And those things are fine, but they don’t have a program that really centers them and focuses them on being efficient with their time away from chairside. identifying partners that can help them achieve their goals and aligning with partners who understand their philosophy and why they want to open a practice and what they’re looking for in terms of the demographics that they want in their practice. Does that make sense?

Bill Neumann: Yeah, it sure does. So they may be getting good, useful information from different sources, but there’s nothing comprehensive that they’re really using. So they might be getting bits and pieces from live lectures or things that they’ve seen on Facebook, but there’s nothing that kind of goes like locate does point by point using these different categories, these studies that you talked about, which we’re going to get into in a second. But yeah, that’s great. That’s just curious about that. You know, how are they doing it right now? And it seems like it’s hit or miss depending on the individual group or the dentist.

David James: Yeah, Bill, if I could add to that, What I’ve seen kind of in my experience is that on an individual practitioner level, most of the time, and we’ll go through our process of how we drill down to find the best locations or the best what I call pockets. Most of the time I see practitioners doing it completely opposite. They’ll go out and maybe identify a location or a building or an address or something that looks really good or Or what they’ll basic or what they’ll do is they’ll go out and hire a commercial broker right away and say, we’ll start showing me places all over the town or wherever, right? Just drive around looking for places and things like that. And they end up wasting several days looking at something and then hopefully if they find something they like, then they try to get some data to justify it. And 95% of the time that doesn’t work. So, you know, and then like, like you and Rhonda were saying, they’re also going out and they’re getting some information, maybe from their lender, they’re getting some information from their distributor or CPA or whatever. And a lot of times they’re trying to get demographic data, but it’s usually off the internet and it’s obsolete, which is really, really dangerous. And the thing I see them not doing at all is really looking at the competition and using the analysis that we do. We call them competition ratios to really evaluate where the best places to put their practice will be, as well as the best demographics. And our process goes through and identify those areas that have the best ratios with the best demographics. And then you go and hire a broker to find out, you know, to find whether a building or something to rent. You know, then you can implement your actual business plan at that point at the end, knowing that you’ve done all the due diligence and work up front. And so that’s what I see most of the time is, is like you’re saying, is they gather information. I know a lot of companies I’ve talked to, they have, you know, they’re getting pieces and parcels of information from all over the place, but then they’re trying to consolidate it all into a spreadsheet and they’re spending a lot of extra money buying data that isn’t consolidated and not set up to really be specific to their industry.

Bill Neumann: No, that’s great. I think it ties into this question that I wanted to ask Rhonda really about, like specifically, and we touched on a little bit of this, when really how does Locate excel? Like where does it excel compared to, and you touched on it, David and Rhonda, a little bit about, hey, this is the way the DSOs and the dentists are doing things now, but let’s break it out a little bit more. Can you start, Rhonda?

Rhonda Meyer: Sure. So number one, let’s take a scenario where we have a partner who wants a location for a new practice. So what we are able to do is we are able to, one, I ask, what are you looking for? What are the demographics that you think are favorable for your type of practice? and we can actually do research and identify up to 10 locations in a market. So say San Antonio, Texas, you know you want to open an additional practice there because you think that you have a team that you could put into a new practice. We can identify 10 market locations in an area and then we run a report that gives a composite ranking Of those 10 locations, it’s up to our end user to determine where they’re going to go. These market areas, these 10 locations are not an address. It’s where the competition ratio and the demographics, the population is sufficient to support an additional practice. And I think that’s really a different approach. and really interesting because we do not advise our end user, but we do give them an awful lot of information. And when they talk to an analyst and they walk through the report, they may decide that practice number two is more desirable for whatever reason than number one, but they will all qualify as a very good location to start a new practice. So I think that’s interesting. I was pretty excited about it. We also give our end user location analysis. So if they are looking to acquire a practice, we can provide them with competition ratios and demographic deep dives. So if you had a pediatric dentist who wants to acquire a practice, we can provide them with insight in the demographics surrounding the practice by drive time or by radius. and help them feel very confident about their ability to reach the individuals living in a decent drive time or radius, reasonable. And I think the other thing that’s really important is it helps the end user think strategically. not just about this next practice, but what is around it? What are the other businesses? What are the projections in the future for that area in terms of growth, population changes, income changes? Those are things that the doctor or the partner may not have easy access to, but we have it all in one report. So it’s actually pretty exciting.

Bill Neumann: Rhonda, great info there. I mean, it seems like, obviously, really strategically, which should be the way things are done, right? Strategically looking at practice location versus you know, here’s a location that’s, you know, I’ve found from a broker and you almost try and make it fit, you know, with you instead of looking at all the different options, looking at the demographics. David, can you maybe dive a little bit deeper into what Rhonda mentioned? I know there are some really critical areas that should be focused on and where Locate really excels.

David James: Yeah, Bill, thanks. This is with my CFO background and things like that, this is what really gets me very interested because like, like she mentioned before, when we work with our industry partners, this is not a one-sided partnership. You know, our, our goal is not only to help the end up in practitioner, but also, like I said, like we said, to help partners grow and make more money and speed up their sales cycles and all kinds of stuff like that. But there’s three main critical areas that we. that if I’m thinking of most industry partners or groups or DSOs that they would get involved in. And those three would be startup decisions, the process for buying a practice, due diligence factors, that sort of thing, and then evaluating their existing practices. So let me kind of dive into those just real briefly with a little bit more detail. So when we work with somebody on a startup, we’ve come up with a process that is, you know, I mentioned earlier that most people do this backwards. To me, the correct way to do this is, using San Antonio as your example, is if somebody wanted to go into San Antonio and say, I want to be within, say, a 30-minute drive time of downtown San Antonio. I don’t care where, I just want to know where. We would do what we call a market study. And in that market study, we evaluate every, I’m going to use a technical term called census block group, And what that basically means is that we don’t do anything by zip codes, because those are a whole other discussion, but they’re completely and utterly useless the census block group is there’s 243,000. little segments that the Census Bureau breaks the country down into. So they’re really, really small pieces of data with 500 to 3,000 people. And everything we do is rolled out by using Census Block Group or CBGs and everything. So I’m just guessing, but in San Antonio, in that 30-minute drive time search area, there’s probably 600 or 700 CBGs in that area. What we do is we evaluate every one of those, all 600 of those get evaluated to using, looking at competition ratios and demographics, especially household income filters to determine which of, like Rhonda said, the top 10 census block groups in that whole huge area would be what I would call, what we call the best pockets of opportunity that have the highest competition ratios with the best household income, if that’s what you would like to have and those sort of things. So we identify the top 10, and you can also get the top 15 or 20 if you want to do an add-on purchase on top of that. Okay, so then once we work with the client, once they’ve identified the top 10, we suggest, okay, pick two or three of these that fit your eye. Okay, you can see yourself working there or living there, and then do a deep dive demographic study on them. We call that the location study. So that’s step two, the location study is, we look at the competition ratio in more detail for just that census block group and, excuse me, and then do the demographic analysis that comes with that. And that covers like 19 different demographic factors and things like that. Okay, so once you’ve identified the best CBGs And then you’ve drilled down to find the best location. Then as Rhonda said earlier, then we go looking, then you go and find a commercial broker or someone to go and start looking for areas. Now, I want to clarify something when I say CBG. Every one of those 600 things we analyze, it’s looking at two different sets of data, a radius data that is usually within a really short distance of that practice, and then a drive time area where we approximate what’s the average market for that individual practice if you put one in that CBG. So that, in essence, is boiling down our methodology to go and find the best place to do startup things. And this knocks off months and months and months of the decision process. which saves people a ton of money. It allows all kinds of things to happen much, much faster. It’s just a, you know, usually we can, within a month or less, we can get this decision made. So then step number two, or then item number two, the process for buying a practice, which is due diligence and things like that. Okay, to me, if I’m a CFO and I’m like, I’m looking to buy a practice and I don’t know where I want to start looking in an area, I just say, let’s say, I just want to go to San Antonio, but I don’t know where to start, where to look. I would do a market study and identify the areas that have the best competition ratios, like we talked about before. And then maybe you start looking for practices in that area. Because if there’s a practice there, then they’ve got the highest growth potential and least amount of competition, things like that. It also allows you in your due diligence process to look at, okay, you know, what’s the competition, what’s the demographics and what’s the growth potential. And then something that’s near and dear to me is because as a CFO, I know that when I’m buying a practice, I’m basically buying the patient base. It’s mostly goodwill. I mean, there’s a little bit of equipment and things like that. And to me, a patient that’s five minutes away from practice is probably worth more from a valuation standpoint than a patient that’s 20 minutes away, because the one closer is more than likely to keep coming than the one further away. and we have a product that we can analyze patient dispersion and assess all kinds of different variables to that to incorporate that into due diligence. Because most of the most of the evaluation methods that I see when it comes to due diligence do not include location factors, and they definitely do not do any kind of patient analysis from a dispersion standpoint or anything like that. And then finally, The other thing that’s really excites me is that if you’re a group or you’re an individual practitioner and you have an existing practice, and maybe you’re stagnant or you don’t know what to do, you’re kind of stuck, right? If you get, we use the location study that I mentioned before, and what that will provide is a market baseline. It’ll show you what your competition is in your area and what your demographics are. And in that process with your advisors, helps you determine, OK, should we be doing what I call strategic moves, which could be things like, should I add an office? Should I hire an associate to manage that office? Should I move my practice two miles down the road to open up new markets? Should I add equipment? Should I renew my lease or not? There’s all kinds of things that go into the strategic side of this that most people don’t realize that you can help figure out strategically and from a business plan standpoint. just by a simple little location study. So, you know, Bill, sorry for kind of the long speech there, but you can see this is kind of the part where I’m really passionate about, where I think there’s a lot of hidden opportunities that we can bring to the table, regardless of whether, like you said, you’re a group of one or a group of 100.

Bill Neumann: Thanks, David and Rhonda. This is great insight. And I just want to put an exclamation point on these critical areas that you mentioned, David, because you talked about startup decisions. So you could be a solo practitioner looking to just add, you know, your first location. to the importance there, or you could be a group that’s looking to do a build out somewhere. So to add an existing location, you could be in the process of buying a practice. So you could use it for your due diligence process. And I think David talked about this at the beginning of the podcast. You can really kind of leverage what the large DSOs and the data and the insights, and they’ve got big teams that, you know, they have this incredible due diligence process. Well, Locate really provides that to you and almost gives you the ability to compete or at least be able to analyze like the big DSOs and groups do. And then finally, you really touched on something, David, which I think is critical in 2024 is this, hey, we have existing practices. A lot of talk around same-store sales. So if they’re not performing well, are we in the right location? What are we doing wrong? Do we need to add another operatory? What should we do? So you talked about those strategic moves when you’re evaluating and maximizing what you’re doing at the practices or the practice or practices you already have. So great, great insights there. I think this is a good point. If there are audience members that are interested in finding out more now, we’re going to get into a deeper dive. But Rhonda, can you provide your contact information in case somebody says, hey, you know, this is good. I want to want to find out more. How do they get in touch with you, Rhonda?

Rhonda Meyer: They can email me at RHONDA.MEYER@locatestrategy.com. They can call me at 415-516-5824, or they can reach out to me through our website, locatestrategy.com.

Bill Neumann: Excellent. We’ll drop the email address and the phone number and of course the website information in our show notes. Everybody will have access to that. Wanted to get into a deeper dive here. You mentioned, both of you mentioned these studies, these reports that you put together for your partners. So can we talk a little bit, Rhonda, about the benefits of these studies?

Rhonda Meyer: Absolutely. You know, it’s interesting because, you know, David and I, obviously we look at things a little bit differently. We had a little bit of a laugh about that yesterday, but one of the things we always agree on is how much time this saves our client and how it supports their strategic goals. It provides them with current data. It provides them with five-year projections. It puts them in the driver’s seat. So if it’s an individual doctor, private practice doctor is looking for a second location, it arms them with information that helps them kind of steer their other partners, whether that’s a commercial real estate investor, a commercial real estate broker, it’s just puts them in a really good position of knowledge, it gives them confidence. They’re talking to an analyst that’s walking through their proposed, you know, their vision of what they’re looking to achieve. So It just saves a lot of time and it saves a lot of energy trying to gather the information themselves or getting conflicting information. And that’s really challenging. I also think that being armed with these insights help you find a specific location and having the confidence that you will be able to open a practice or buy a practice that has the composition that you’re looking for. You’re going to be up and running in your practice faster. So I think Those types, in general, are really important to our end user.

David James: And Bill, I would guess, Rhonda, those were awesome. And yes, it is great that you and I have different perspectives and different, and we have a good time over it because, you know, we think different and that makes what makes it such a great team. Bill, I guess the thing I would add to that is it always struck me that in talking to especially students and associates and things like that is that I just imagine the conversation that they have around their kitchen table at night, where they’re sitting there with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt. And they’re talking about, okay, well, we want to start our own practice, or we want to buy into one, or we’re making a decision about being an associate somewhere, or looking to branch out on our own. And they’re looking at the costs of doing this, the loans to get in, the half a million, or a million, or whatever, a lot more. In the past, they’re making the biggest financial decision of their life, and a subset of that is the location, which is the biggest decision that’s going to determine how successful they are, and they don’t have any peace of mind about it. One of the big things that we really bring to the table in terms of benefits, there’s tangible benefits in terms of financial and things like that, but there’s also intangible benefits in terms of being able to look your spouse in the eye and say, you know what, I think we’re making a great decision here. We’ve done everything possible to minimize the risk. And with the partners we have, we can really, really make a big go of this without living in fear that we’re making a bad decision. And then we’ve also had tremendous success in using this information to work with the other partners, whether it’s a lender or a distributor or whatever, to use it for negotiations and for contracts and leases and things like that as well, because it puts you, like Rhonda said, in a position of power and strength. Knowledge, having knowledge gives you power and puts you in the driver’s seat. So again, with my background of really, really wanting to help people, this is something that gives me a lot of satisfaction to know that we’re really making a difference in the lives of the people and young families.

Bill Neumann: Just touching on these reports a little bit more, one of the big challenges in the industry right now, pretty much from even before COVID, but certainly COVID on, is really attracting associates, talent. So is there, and either one of you can answer this one. How do you leverage these reports and studies to help attract talent?

David James: Well, Bill, this is another topic near and dear to my heart. And as a matter of fact, once we get done talking, before I forget, if your listeners would want to go to locate.com and go to our blog, there’s an article I wrote about this topic a few years ago on there. But to me, you know, I’ve done some talks to students and things like that. And I tell associates that they need to do their own location due diligence whenever they’re looking at a practice to join. And the reason for that is I always say, do your due diligence assuming you’re going to be there forever. I mean, the odds are you may not be, but you never know. You may be a perfect situation, all that kind of thing. So what I recommend to them is to ask the practice they’re looking at for a location study. So you can understand the market and what you’re getting into. I mean, if I’m an associate and I have the choice of two different practices to join, why not join one that’s in a growing area with not much competition and where you have a fighting chance of achieving the goals that you and your doctor are setting versus one in an area that is so completely saturated that they’re having to spend a ton of money just to cannibalize patients from other docs in the area. So flipping that around, if I’m a practitioner looking to get an associate, I would, if I want to be professional and set myself apart from anybody else, I would have this information in hand and have that, give that to them right up front. Okay, because number one, hopefully Hopefully, it’s good data that puts your practice in a positive light, that allows you to attract associates and things like that. If it’s not, then maybe that’s something you could use to make some other changes like you talked about earlier, Bill. But to me, it is a tremendous recruiting tool in order to bring the associates on board that you would like to get.

Bill Neumann: David, you’re right. I mean, well, you talked about those other moves, right? I think you called them strategic moves, whether it’s moving, right? Maybe you’re in the wrong location, you move two miles away, or you’re going to expand or remodel. So yeah, it’s great. I mean, this really kind of checks Locate’s technology really checks a lot of boxes of what dentists’ group practices should be looking for when they are building out a practice, going through due diligence, or evaluating a practice that they have currently. David, question for you. How does Locate get its data? Where does it come from?

David James: Well, Bill, there are three main data outputs that drive everything that we do. competition ratios, demographic data, and mapping data. So here’s how we do it. The first one is demographic data. And we get the best national demographic data in the US for you, so you don’t have to source it or worry that it’s not current. It’s not just current year data, but we also get five-year projected forecast data, which is very important for projections. And we update it annually, which is the fastest option available. The second type of output that we do is called competition ratios. And these are vital. And in order to do that, we need a national practitioner and practice database. So let’s make sure we understand what a competition ratio is just to make sure. It’s the numerator in the ratio is population and it comes from demographic data from the above process we talked about before using census block groups. Denominator is the number of practitioners in that specific area, not practices, it’s practitioners. Sounds simple, but it’s not. The problem is there’s no practitioner and practice database in the country that has the precision needed to calculate the denominator that are going to be used to make these massive business decisions that you guys are making. But we have to have a starting point. So we obtained the best database we can find. It’s based on a national registry, and we’re confident it’s the best available. Then our analysts use various research methods to supplement. We add, change, move docs around, add practices as needed, do all kinds of different things based upon what we find with our research. We even assign fractions of practitioners if a practice in the area is part-time or a practitioner is part-time. For example, if an orthodontist practices in five different offices one day a week, and one of those offices is in our search area, we actually count that as 20% of a full-time orthodontist. which is a huge, huge market value add that we do. And so the second problem with that is that every change our analysts make affects tens or even hundreds of these CBGs in the search area. So how do you manage that? So to manage that, we’ve invested heavily in what we call our practitioner management system. And this system automatically updates all the ratios for each CBG as each change is made. It does all the math and all the calculations. And in doing so, part of what we do is every practice and practitioner location is geocoded to the rooftop level, which is the most precise method available. And then once all that’s done, all the research is done, then our analysts will rank them and provide the best options. But then you’re like, okay, well, how do we analyze and see what makes sense? So these resulting competition ratios, we compare them to what we call our proprietary ideal ratios that are specific for each practice type. And those ideal ratios are a measure of market saturation. When I say market saturation, it’s kind of like the balance in the market to where everybody’s happy and everybody can find customers and kind of grow and be okay. It’s kind of a nice equilibrium. And these ratios are tried and true. We’ve got a decade of testing behind these ratios. And we know that they are very, very, very reliable for these ratio calculations. And finally, very quickly, the third major source of data is mapping. And our system interfaces with Google Maps, Mapbox, and just a ton of other geospatial and geocoding tools, things like that, that we bring to bear so you don’t have to. So every situation is different. And we work really hard to provide the most materially accurate information we can. And one last thing about data, just to really emphasize data in general. The key to data is rolling it up and interpreting it and having the expertise to do it. And honestly, we’re the best at that because all the data for a search area or individual location or market is by census block groups. I can’t emphasize enough the zip codes, concentric circles, cities, counties, DMAs, Postal routes, all of them are useless because a dental practice market doesn’t care about artificial government boundaries. We can use them, but we strongly advise against it. The other thing that we do when we’re analyzing the data is we use partial CBG data. So when a search area boundary crosses, say, the middle of a census block group, say 40% of that, we calculate 40% of the data in that area and count that in the results. And finally, We talked about doing radius and drive time searches, but one of the strengths of our platform is we do custom polygons, which is basically a fancy way of saying we can draw any kind of boundary or shape that you want. You know, so for example, if you’ve got a lake or a river or a highway or a license issue or a non-compete restriction, any of those things, we can do a custom polygon instead of a radius and drive time to make the market as accurate and realistic as possible. So there’s a ton more information about this on our site. And it could also be seen with a live demo from Rhonda, or there’s also a video of a demo on our site as well.

Bill Neumann: Thanks, David. As we start to wrap up this podcast, David, do you have any final thoughts you’d like to share with the audience?

David James: Yeah, Bill, you know, everyone in this audience has one primary mission, and that is to increase shareholder value. And as a fellow CEO and CFO, I designed our Locate platform, our reports and our methods specifically to provide the information you need to create strategic plans at the most fundamental and most important level with location factors, to help you raise capital, attract the right people, and then help you execute the business plans for not just new practices, but your existing practices or anything else. We have an extensive track record of increasing shareholder value exponentially while providing off-the-charts ROI. We provide the only world-class competitive technology web platform and data solution in the industry. And it’s designed specifically for your market. Our simple but highly effective process and reports, we bring all the data analysis under one platform to address what we’ve talked about before. Your startup decisions, your practice purchase and due diligence issues, evaluating your existing practices, recruiting and retaining key personnel, which is very important to me. And then finally, we’re just a competitive differentiator that if you’re in a position where you’re trying to win a proposal, close a deal, or even just get listings, we can really, really help you separate yourself from your competition. If you have custom metrics, this is a big thing that we also do. We haven’t talked about much, but if you have custom metrics or specialized reporting needs, we can create an integrated custom solution just for you. So at the end of the day, we enable you to use world-class tech We save time by speeding up your location startup and purchase decisions. We allow the use of operational resources for value added work, so you’re not just paying for data gathering. Reduce the risk, increase your peace of mind, and most of all, The more we help individual practices grow their top and bottom lines, the more we help the corporate entities grow and show investors, recruits, and other industry partners in your staff the value and growth potential of your practices and your groups. So, like I said, we encourage you to see the platform in action. Just schedule a demo with Rhonda, and I think you will really, really be impressed.

Bill Neumann: Thanks. Thank you, David. That is a great way to kind of finish things up. Rhonda, final thoughts from you and then your contact information so people can reach out to you. I mean, it’s just… I can’t imagine not using something like Locate to assist my group in evaluating the practices that we have, looking for new locations. It just seems like this is just the right way to go about it. You take a lot of the feelings out of the process, right? This is logical with a lot of data.

Rhonda Meyer: It is, and I guess my comment would be reach out sooner rather than later. I’m here to help the individual doctor, but our partners, there’s a lot of industry knowledge there. And we also have the ability, if you think about how early in the process we are for practice acquisitions, for startups, we have the ability to refer back. So we would do that for you or for any of our DSO partners in the future whenever we can. We can’t promise it, but we would look for that. And we really like what we do. Really, really like what you do.

Bill Neumann: Rhonda, what’s your email address one more time, please, and website? Excuse me.

Rhonda Meyer: It’s Rhonda.Meyer@locatestrategy.com and the website is locate strategy.com

Bill Neumann: Excellent. And David pointed out something that there is a blog section on the website. So there’s some really good articles here. We’ll link to a couple of them in the show notes as well. So, hey, thank you so much. Really great deep dive into all things location focused, whether it’s choosing a new location, evaluating the practices you have, it can even help with recruiting associates. So this is, I appreciate the insights here and I think you’re gonna see Locate Strategy appearing more and more at group practice and DSO events and just seeing their information around the industry quite a bit more. So thanks, Rhonda and David, and thank you, everybody, for listening in. And until next time, I’m Bill Neumann, and this is the Group Dentistry Now Show.